Part 36 (1/2)

ARKWRIGHT, SIR RICHARD, born at Preston, Lancas.h.i.+re; bred to the trade of a barber; took interest in the machinery of cotton-spinning; with the help of a clockmaker, invented the spinning frame; was mobbed for threatening thereby to shorten labour and curtail wages, and had to flee; fell in with Mr. Strutt of Derby, who entered into partners.h.i.+p with him; prospered in business and died worth half a million. ”French Revolutions were a-brewing; to resist the same in any way, Imperial Caesars were impotent without the cotton and cloth of England; and it was this man,” says Carlyle, ”that had to give to England the power of cotton” (1732-1792).

ARLBERG, a mountain ma.s.s between the Austrian provinces of Vorarlberg and Tyrol, pierced by a tunnel, one of the three that penetrate the Alps, and nearly four miles in length.

ARLES (14), a city, one of the oldest in France, on the Rhone, 46 m.

N. of Ma.r.s.eilles, where Constantine built a palace, with ruins of an amphitheatre and other Roman works; the seat of several Church Councils.

AR'LINCOURT, VISCOUNT D', a French romancer, born near Versailles (1789-1856).

AR'LINGTON, HENRY BENNET, EARL OF, served under Charles I., and accompanied Charles II. in his exile; a prominent member of the famous Cabal; being impeached when in office, lost favour and retired into private life (1618-1685).

AR'LON (8), a prosperous town in Belgium, capital of Luxemburg.

ARMA'DA, named the Invincible, an armament fitted out in 1588 by Philip II. of Spain against England, consisting of 130 war-vessels, mounted with 2430 cannon, and manned by 20,000 soldiers; was defeated in the Channel on July 20 by Admiral Howard, seconded by Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher; completely dispersed and shattered by a storm in retreat on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, the English losing only one s.h.i.+p; of the whole fleet only 53 s.h.i.+ps found their way back to Spain, and these nearly all _hors de combat_.

ARMAGEDDON, a name given in Apocalypse to the final battlefield between the powers of good and evil, or Christ and Antichrist.

ARMAGH (143), a county in Ulster, Ireland, 32 m. long by 20 m.

broad; and a town (18) in it, 33 m. SW. of Belfast, from the 5th to the 9th century the capital of Ireland, as it is the ecclesiastical still; the chief manufacture linen-weaving.

ARMAGNAC, a district, part of Gascony, in France, now in dep. of Gers, celebrated for its wine and brandy.

ARMAGNACS, a faction in France in time of Charles VI. at mortal feud with the Bourguignons.

ARMATO'LES, warlike marauding tribes in the mountainous districts of Northern Greece, played a prominent part in the War of Independence in 1820.

ARMED SOLDIER OF DEMOCRACY, Napoleon Bonaparte.

ARME'NIA, a country in Western Asia, W. of the Caspian Sea and N. of Kurdistan Mts., anciently independent, now divided between Turkey, Russia, and Persia, occupying a plateau interspersed with fertile valleys, which culminates in Mt. Ararat, in which the Euphrates and Tigris have their sources.

ARMENIANS, a people of the Aryan race occupying Armenia, early converted to Christianity of the Eutychian type; from early times have emigrated into adjoining, and even remote, countries, and are, like the Jews, mainly engaged in commercial pursuits, the wealthier of them especially in banking.

ARMENTIeRES (27), a manufacturing and trading town in France, 12 m.

N. of Lille.